


A Glass Half Empty

by jusrecht



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, M/M, Total Wish Fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 12:02:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18716683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: Tony came for the Time Stone and got more (and less) than he bargained for.





	A Glass Half Empty

**Author's Note:**

> So the first moment I screamed during Endgame was when the Ancient One appeared. I just love her so much, so here's a total wish fulfillment: Tony meeting her during the stone heist. 
> 
> Another note: this fic also ignores certain aspects of Endgame, so it's not totally canon compliant.

 

“It’s not there.”

 

Tony whirled around, gauntlets armed and ready. Every muscle in his body was strung tight, poised for a fight. He had been ready for so much more than a fight for years now.

 

Then he saw the person who spoke—and stopped.

 

To be fair, Tony didn’t know what he had expected; some other version of Wong, maybe, ready to put the fear of magic in any enterprising intruder. Instead, it was a woman dressed in yellow. Her head was completely bald and her robes reminded him of Strange’s, but it was neither the person nor the clothes that made him stop. It was the look on her face—serene, placid, and what an incongruence it made on the backdrop of New York City at war.

 

“What you’re looking for,” she continued mildly. Her hands moved in smooth, flowing arcs, revealing an all-too-familiar necklace and the green stone inside. “It’s here.”

 

Pain spasmed through Tony at the sight of the stone. Five years had passed since he had seen it last, bartered in exchange for his life. The long-healed stab wound in his chest pulsed and a deeper longing (grief) answered. In response, he gritted his teeth and forced a grin on his face.

 

“Great. As shiny as ever. Now, can I borrow it?”

 

Her serenity was polished glass, clear and unblemished. “Quite impossible, I’m afraid. In fact, I must ask you to–” She abruptly stopped. A frown gathered on her brow. “You’re not of this time, are you?”

 

Tony’s stomach lurched. He was still scrambling for an explanation when the floor under his feet suddenly gave way.

 

It felt as if he had been yanked through a needle hole. When he regained his bearings, Tony found himself sitting on the floor, legs crossed, in a large room filled with slanting half-lights. Wooden lattices made the walls on each side and there was the scent of herb and incense in the air—those and something else, something more familiar that brought a lump to his throat.

 

The witch was sitting in front of him, pouring from a teapot. “Please.” She set a full cup on the low table between them. “This will make you feel better. Travelling through time could put a strain on one’s body.”

 

Tony eyed the clear greenish liquid with some misgivings. “No, thank you.”

 

“I insist.”

 

“So do I, so clearly we’re at an impasse here–”

 

“Only then will we talk about your purpose.”

 

Tony glared. The perfect equanimity with which it was returned told him that this was not a battle he was going to win. Five years ago, he wouldn’t have surrendered, but five years ago he had been a different man. Tony Stark had lived through crippling grief and endless failures since. If anything, those things taught a man to pick his battles better.

 

The cup was warm to touch. He picked it up slowly and a delicate fragrance rose to tease his nose. “No coffee?” he muttered, if only to delay the inevitable. Never let it be said that Tony Stark didn’t _try_.

 

“Coffee will only increase your heartrate,” was her placid reply. “Inadvisable, considering your condition.”

 

She had a point. Sighing, Tony braced himself before taking the first sip. It was hot and there wasn’t much taste, but the effect was instantaneous.

 

His heartbeat slowed. His headache—which he hadn’t noticed until then—quieted. For the first time since he had been brought there, he noticed that there was no sound coming from outside. No riots of an ongoing battle. No roars, no smashed metal or crumbling buildings. Only a deep spreading stillness.

 

When she spoke again, her voice was as powerful as a bell. “You are here for the stone.”

 

He looked at her—felt the way her voice reached deep into his soul. “Yes.”

 

“The Time Stone,” she clarified.

 

“Yes.”

 

“And Stephen Strange.”

 

Tony blinked. “I… no. _Yes_. Damn it.” He scowled at the witch. “What’s in the tea?”

 

She gave him a smile that would have been mischievous on somebody else’s face. “It’s not the tea.”

 

A wave of her hand revealed a glowing seal under his cushion. Tony almost scrambled to his feet, but the strange calm that was spreading in him kept him quiet, almost listless.

 

“My apologies.” She sounded sincere at least. “But I have to make sure you’re not a threat.”

 

“I’m not,” he declared, wishing that he could put more vehemence into his voice.

 

She nodded and poured herself a cup of the same tea. He watched her—her quiet movement, her ageless face, her ancient eyes—and something in his brain clicked

 

“You’re Dumbledore.”

 

“I am Stephen’s teacher, yes,” she replied, unperturbed.

 

A slew of conflicting emotions rose in Tony’s chest. He picked the loudest, most belligerent one. “Your student was an idiot.”

 

A gentle rise of her eyebrows greeted this accusation. “Really? He’s supposed to be the best of us, but perhaps I was mistaken. It wouldn’t be the first time. What did he do, by the way?”

 

“He gave up the Time Stone.”

 

“Oh.” Real concern trickled into her expression at last. “Willingly?”

 

“Willingly. Freely. Completely unnecessarily. It wasn’t pried out of his cold dead hand, if that’s what you’re asking.”

 

“But why would he do that?”

 

“As a trade-off—to save me.” Even now, the words still filled his mouth with bitterness. “Supposedly to save the rest of the world too. Told me we had one chance in fourteen million. Except then he went off and got vaporised and left me to sort out all this mess. So yes, your student wasn’t only an idiot but also an asshole.”

 

“Indeed,” she murmured, looking rather pleased for some ungodly reason. “How interesting.”

 

 _Interesting_? Tony bristled. He was one millisecond away from giving in to the sudden surge of rage when she asked, completely out of the blue, “Are you here to destroy the Time Stone?”

 

It took the wind out of his sail so quickly that he was left floundering for a moment. “No, I’m not,” he blurted out. “What are you–”

 

“To harm Stephen?”

 

He glared at her, affronted. “Of course not.”

 

“Then why are you here?”

 

The next five minutes or so saw Tony trying to explain the theory of time travel and parallel universes to a sorcerer who _wielded_ time. He probably would have appreciated the irony better if there had been any room left in his head for anything other than the Stones.

 

To her credit, she listened. She made her arguments at various points, all perfectly valid, and then listened again to his counter-arguments. At the end of the process, Tony found himself thinking about Stephen Strange, their arguments, their too-short acquaintanceship.

 

 _Doc,_ he wanted to say, _now I know why you’re the way you are._

 

“You care about him,” she said, again completely out of nowhere. Her eyes were gentle, and Tony found himself bristling under her pity.

 

“I don’t… he’s not…” He frowned, irritation and embarrassment rushing through him at the same time. How could he make her, or anyone else for that matter, understand what Stephen Strange had come to mean to him? They had known each other for a week at most, trapped in a flying doughnut hurtling through space—and yet, in that span of one week, they had protected each other, supported each other, learned to trust each other, found comfort in each other. In one week, as they tried to survive in an alien ship and fiddled with their future, they, he and Peter and Strange, had learned to be a family.

 

“That’s not the point,” he said at last, giving up on any attempt to explain.

 

She made no reply. Instead, she rose to her feet and said, “Come with me.”

 

They stepped out of the room. Tony paused at the door, heart sinking into his stomach, as he realised that they were no longer in New York. There was no hint of battle anywhere. Instead, the sun was angling low in a clear afternoon sky. The air was fresh, warmed by sunlight but clean. A few birdcalls sounded here and there, but any other sound was distant, muted, as if coming from far away.

 

“Uh, where are we?” Tony asked as he followed her through rambling halls and down countless pathways. It was a compound of some sort, dozens of buildings in the same style crammed into one place.

 

“Kamar-Taj,” she replied, as if it should explain everything.

 

“Where?”

 

“Kamar-Taj. In Nepal. Year 2016.”

 

Tony froze in mid-step. “What?”

 

“I will return you later,” she said, in a voice more suited to talking about the weather than time travel. Then she stopped, nodding to her right. “There.”

 

He followed her eyes, past a low stone wall and a fringe of trees, to an open courtyard. It was empty but for two persons sparring at the centre.

 

One of them was Stephen.

 

Tony gasped, as if air had just been punched out of his lungs. His legs felt weak. He would’ve fallen on his knees if she hadn’t rested a hand on his arm.

 

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “He cannot see us.”

 

Tony nodded, staring at the face he hadn’t seen in five years. Stephen wore dark red, just like his sparring partner—although ‘sparring’ was a charitable description to what they were doing. He was clearly getting his ass kicked. Tony couldn’t help a snicker when Stephen ended up on his butt, again. He remembered their fight in Titan as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday. He remembered Doctor Strange, a powerful sorcerer who bent matter and reality to his will, fearless and terrifying. A smile came to his lips

 

“I’ve had my doubts about him,” she spoke again after the pause, “but your words ease my worry.”

 

“He _died_ ,” Tony deadpanned.

 

“Not according to you.” Her hand moved to his elbow, quiet, comforting. “This creature Thanos used the Infinity Stones to erase half the universe. If so, then in all probabilities they are not dead.”

 

“They’re not?” He looked at her, breath caught in his throat.

 

“I don’t think the Stones work that way. To die means to end an existing existence in that particular realm. But to erase an existence means simply that: to erase an existence. No more and no less. There can’t be no death if they don’t exist in the first place.”

 

“So what are you saying? That they’re just… gone?”

 

“I suspect it has something to do with realities,” she replied, weaving an illusion of the universes and branching timelines with a wave of her hand. “Remember all the branches of realities you were talking about? If I have to guess, then what he did was actually picking each strand where this or that person did not exist, and then forcing them all into one. That became your new reality. To undo the process, you need to, well, _undo_ the process. Unlace each strand until only the original is left, your old reality. Unfortunately, only the combined power of the Infinity Stones can do that.”

 

“So what you’re saying is,” Tony swallowed, head reeling with possibilities, “this is not impossible? What we’re attempting to do? That we’re actually on the right track?”

 

She looked at him then, face inscrutable. “You went back into the past and risked your life although you didn’t know that?”

 

“Someone has to do something,” Tony shot back defiantly.

 

Frowning, she said nothing for a few seconds, and then unexpectedly smiled. “Stephen was right to trade the Time Stone for you.”

 

Tony found himself blinking back tears. Something warm bloomed in his chest and it felt like hope. He looked away to distract himself from it, but his eyes found Stephen instead. A laugh rumbled in his throat when Stephen landed a hit on his partner. The triumph that lit up his entire face was another kind of warmth then.

 

Then Stephen looked up—and their eyes met.

 

Tony blinked. There was smoke in his eyes and cacophony in his ears. His heart dropped into his stomach when he saw that he was, once more, on the rooftop of New York, the battle raging all around him.

 

“I apologise,” the Ancient One was saying. “It would seem that I underestimated his abilities.”

 

Tony tried to work his throat, but no word was forthcoming. It was like being given a drop of water only to discover that it was even less than half of that. He watched blankly as she removed the Time Stone from its cocoon.

 

“I put my trust in you, Tony Stark,” she said, placing the stone in his hand.

 

Tony only nodded, the words still stuck in his throat. In his mind, he still saw the look Stephen had given him, clear, unflinching, triumphant.

 

Tony carried that look with him, deep inside his heart, until golden circles filled the sky and brought his family home.

 

_**End** _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Will Tony die afterwards? Who knows :D


End file.
